Student Bloopers, Part 6 – High School Essay Contest: Worst Analogies

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He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it. (Joseph Romm, Washington)

She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again. (Rich Murphy, Fairfax Station)

The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t. (Russell Beland, Springfield)

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Student Bloopers, Part 5 – Quotes from 11 Year-Old’s Science Exams

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. When you breath, you inspire. When you do not breath, you expire.

. H2O is hot water, and CO2 is cold water.

. To collect fumes of sulphur, hold a deacon over a flame in a test tube.

. When you smell an odorless gas, it is probably carbon monoxide.

. Nitrogen is not found in Connecticut because it is not found in a free state.

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Student Bloopers, Part 4 – Where They Get It

A list of parental excuses supposedly sent to teachers. In these samples, names were replaced with either Fred or Mary to protect innocent and guilty alike.

My son is under the doctor’s care and should not take P.E. today. Please execute him.

Please excuse Mary for being absent. She was sick and I had her shot.

Please excuse Fred for being. It was his father’s fault.

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Student Bloopers Part 2 – World History

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Author: Richard Lederer, St. Paul’s School

One of thefringe benefits of being an English or History teacher is receiving the occasional jewel of a student blooper in an essay. I have pasted together the following "history" of the world from certifiably genuine student bloopers collected by teachers throughout the United States, from eight grade through college level. Read carefully, and you will learn a lot.

The inhabitants of Egypt were called mummies. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere, so certain areas of the dessert are cul- tivated by irritation. The Egyptians built the Pyramids in the shape of a huge triangular cube. The Pramids are a range of mountains between France and Spain.

The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first book of the Bible, Guinesses, Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. One of their children, Cain, asked "Am I my brother’s son?" God asked Abraham to sacrifice Issac on Mount Montezuma. Jacob, son of Issac, stole his brother’s birthmark. Jacob was a partiarch who brought up his twelve sons to be partiarchs, but they did not take to it. One of Jacob’s sons, Joseph, gave refuse to the Israelites.

Pharaoh forced the Hebrew slaves to make bread without straw. Moses led them to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients. Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. David was a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar. He fougth with the Philatelists, a race of people who lived in Biblical times. Solomon, one of David’s sons, had 500 wives and 500 porcupines.

Without the Greeks, we wouldn’t have history. The Greeks invented three kinds of columns – Corinthian, Doric and Ironic. They also had myths. A myth is a female moth. One myth says that the mother of Achilles dipped him in the River Stynx until he became intolerable. Achilles appears in "The Illiad", by Homer. Homer also wrote the "Oddity", in which Penelope was the last hardship that Ulysses endured on his journey. Actually, Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that name.

Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock.

In the Olympic Games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits, and threw the java. The reward to the victor was a coral wreath. The government of Athen was democratic because the people took the law into their own hands. There were no wars in Greece, as the mountains were so high that they couldn’t climb over to see what their neighbors were doing. When they fought the Parisians, the Greeks were outnumbered because the Persians had more men.

Eventually, the Ramons conquered the Geeks. History call people Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long. At Roman banquets, the guests wore garlic in their hair. Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March killed him because they thought he was going to be made king. Nero was a cruel tyrany who would torture his poor subjects by playing the fiddle to them.

Then came the Middle Ages. King Alfred conquered the Dames, King Arthur lived in the Age of Shivery, King Harlod mustarded his troops before the Battle of Hastings, Joan of Arc was cannonized by George Bernard Shaw, and the victims of the Black Death grew boobs on their necks. Finally, the Magna Carta provided that no free man should be hanged twice for the same offense.

In midevil times most of the people were alliterate. The greatest writer of the time was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verse and also wrote liter- ature. Another tale tells of William Tell, who shot an arrow through an apple while standing on his son’s head.

The Renaissance was an age in which more individuals felt the value of their human being. Martin Luther was nailed to the church door at Wittenberg for selling papal indulgences. He died a horrible death, being excommunicated by a bull. It was the painter Donatello’s interest in the female nude that made him the father of the Renaissance. It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented the Bible. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes. Anot

The government of England was a limited mockery. Henry VIII found walking difficult because he had an abbess on his knee. Queen Elizabeth was the "Vir- gin Queen." As a queen she was a success. When Elizabeth exposed herself be- fore her troops, they all shouted "hurrah." Then her navy went out and defeated the Spanish Armadillo.

One of the causes of the Revolutionary Wars was the English put tacks in their tea. Also, the colonists would send their pacels through the post with- out stamps. During the War, Red Coats and Paul Revere was throwing balls over stone walls. The dogs were barking and the peacocks crowing. Finally, the colonists won the War and no longer had to pay for taxis.

Delegates from the original thirteen states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin had gone to Boston carrying all his clothes in his pocket and a loaf of bread under each arm. He invented elec- tricity by rubbing cats backwards and declared "a horse divided against itself cannot stand." Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead.

George Washington married Matha Curtis and in due time became the Father of Our Country. Them the Constitution of the United States was adopted to secure domestic hostility. Under the Constitution the people enjoyed the right to keep bare arms.

Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltare invented electricity and also wrote a book called "Candy". Gravity was invented by Issac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the Autumn, when the apples are flaling off the trees.

Bach was the most famous composer in the world, and so was Handel. Handel was half German, half Italian and half English. He was very large. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.

France was in a very serious state. The French Revolution was accomplished before it happened. The Marseillaise was the theme song of the French Revolu- tion, and it catapulted into Napoleon. During the Napoleonic Wars, the crowned heads of Europe were trembling in their shoes. Then the Spanish gorrilas came down from the hills and nipped at Napoleon’s flanks. Napoleon became ill with bladder problems and was very tense and unrestrained. He wanted an heir to inheret his power, but since Josephin

The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the East and the sun sets in the West. Queen Victoria was the longest queen. She sat on a thorn for 63 years. He reclining years and finally the end of her life were exemplatory of a great personality. Her death was the final event which ended her reign.

The nineteenth century was a time of many great inventions and thoughts. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up. Cyrus McCormick invented the McCormick Raper, which did the work of a hundred men. Samuel Morse invented a code for telepathy. Louis Pastuer discovered a cure for rabbis. Charles Darwin was a naturailst who wrote the "Organ of the Species". Madman Curie discovered radium. And Karl Marx became one of the Marx Brothers.

The First World War, cause by the assignation of the Arch-Duck by a surf, ushered in a new error in the anals of human history.

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Student Bloopers, Part 1 – European History

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Author: Anders Henriksson

Those who forget history–and the English language–may be condemned to mangle both. Historian Anders Henriksson, a five- year veteran of the university classroom, has faithfully recorded his freshman students’ more striking insights into European history. Possibly as an act of vengeance, Henriksson has assembled these fractured fragments into a chronological narrative from the Middle Ages to the present.

During the Middle Ages, everyone was middle aged. Church and state were co-operated. Middle Evil society was made up of monks, lords, and surfs.

After a revival of infantile commerce, merchants appeared. Those roamed from town to town exposing themselves and organizing big fairies in the countryside.

The Crusades were expeditions by Christians who were seeking to free the holy land (the "Home Town" of Christ) from the Islams.

In the 1400 hundreds most Englishmen were perpendicular. A class of ycowls arose. Finally, Europe caught the Black Death. It was spread from port to port by inflected rats. The plague also helped the emergence of English as the national language of England, France, and Italy.

The Middle Ages slimpared to a halt. The renesance bolted in from the blue. Life reeked with joy. Italy became robust, and more individuals felt the value of their human being.

Italy, of course, was much closer to the rest of the world, thanks to northern Europe. Man was determined to civilise himself and his brothers, even if heads had to roll! It became sheik to be educated.

Europe was full of incredable churches with great art bulging out of their doors. Renaisance merchants were beautiful and almost lifelike. The Reformnation happened when German nobles resented that tithes were going to the pope, thus enriching Catholic coiffures.

The popes were usually Catholic. An angry Martin Luther nailed 95 theocrats to a church door. Theologically, Luthar was into reorientation mutation.

Anabaptist services tended to be migratory. Monks went right on seeing themselves as worms. The last Jesuit priest died in the 19th century.

After the refirmation were wars both foreign and infernal. If the Spanish could gain the Netherlands they would have a stronghold throughout northern Europe that would include Italy, Burgangy, central Europe and India thus surrounding France.

The German Emperor’s lower passage was blocked by the French for years and years. Louis XIV became King of the Sun. He gave people food and artillery. If he didn’t like someone, he sent them to the gallows to row for the rest of their lives. Vauban was the royal minister of flirtation.

In Russia, the 17th century was known as the time of the bounding of the serfs. Russian nobles wore clothes to humor Peter the Great. Peter filled his government with accidental people; orthodox priests became government antennae.

The enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltaire wrote a book called Candy that got him into trouble. Philosophers were unknown yet, and the fundamental stake was one of religious tolerance slightly confused with defeatism.

France was in a serious state. Taxation was a great drain on the state budget. The French revolution was accomplished before it happened. The revolution catapaulted into Napolean. Napoleon was ill with bladder problems and was very tense and unrestrained.

History started in 1815. Industrialization was precipitating in England. Problems were so complexicated that in Paris, out of a population of 1 million people, 2 million able bodies were on the loose. The middle class was tired and needed a rest. The old order could see the lid holding down new ideas beginning to shake.

Among the goals of the chartists were universal suferage and an anal parliment. A new time zone of national unification roared over the horizon. Founder of the new Italy was Cavour, an intelligent Sardine from the north. Culture formented from its tip to its top. Dramatized were adventures in seduction and abortion.

Music reeked with reality. Wagner was master of music, and when he died they labeled his seat "historical." World War I broke out about 1912-1914. At war people get killed, and then they aren’t people any more, but friends.

Peace was proclaimed at Versigh, which was attended by General Loid, Primal Minister of England. President Wilson arrived with 14 pointers. In 1917, Lenin revolted Russia. Germany was displaced after WW1. This gave rise to Hitler, who remilitarized the Rineland over a squirmish between Germany and France.

Mooscalini rested his foundations on 8 million bayonets and invaded Hi Lee Salasy. Germany invaded Poland, France invaded Belgium, and Russia invaded everybody. War screeched to an end when a nukleer explosion was dropped on Heroshima. A whole generation had been wipe out, and their forlorne families were left to pick up the peaces. The last stage is us.

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Things Adults Learn from Kids

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There is no such thing as child-proofing your house.

If you spray hair spray on dust bunnies and run over them with roller blades, they can ignite

A 4 years-old’s voice is louder than 200 adults in a crowded restaurant

If you hook a dog leash over a ceiling fan the motor is not strong enough to rotate a 42 pound boy wearing pound puppy underwear and a superman cape

It is strong enough however to spread paint on all four walls of a 20 by 20 foot room

Baseballs make marks on ceilings

You should not throw baseballs up when the ceiling fan is on

When using the ceiling fan as a bat you have to throw the ball up a few times before you get a hit

A ceiling fan can hit a baseball a long way.

The glass in windows (even double pane) doesn’t stop a baseball hit by a ceiling fan

When you hear the toilet flush and the words "Uh-oh;" it’s already too late

Brake fluid mixed with Clorox makes smoke, and lots of it

A six year old can start a fire with a flint rock even though a 36 year old man says they can only do it in the movies

A magnifying glass can start a fire even on an overcast day

If you use a waterbed as home plate while wearing baseball shoes it does not leak – it explodes

A king size waterbed holds enough water to fill a 2000 sq foot house 4 inches deep

Legos will pass through the digestive tract of a four year old. Duplos will not.

Play Dough and Microwave should never be used in the same sentence

Super glue is forever

McGyver can teach us many things we don’t want to know

Ditto Tarzan

No matter how much Jello you put in a swimming pool you still can’t walk on water

Pool filters do not like Jello

VCR’s do not eject PB&J sandwiches even though TV commercials show they do

Garbage bags do not make good parachutes

Marbles in gas tanks make lots of noise when driving

You probably do not want to know what that odor is

Always look in the oven before you turn it on

Plastic toys do not like ovens

The fire department in San Diego has at least a 5 minute response time

The spin cycle on the washing machine does not make earth worms dizzy

It will however make cats dizzy

Cats throw up twice their body weight when dizzy

Quiet does not necessarily mean don’t worry

A good sense of humor will get you through most problems in life (unfortunately, mostly in retrospect)

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